U2’s Bono Recounts Mid-Air Learjet Mishap, Worries About Cows

BERLIN, Germany — Bono says a mid-air mishap in which the luggage-compartment door fell off his Learjet into the woods of Germany was a "bit scary" — but his real concern is the animals that were down below. "The worry is where is the door, where are those bags?" the U2 rock star said on the red carpet at an awards ceremony in Berlin on Thursday night. "You know there may be a few cows or sheep in the German countryside with a very sore head. We trust that nobody was hurt because we would have heard by now and that was actually our first concern, cause we were fine."

The singer and four friends were taking the private jet from Dublin to Berlin on Wednesday and were about 25 minutes from the airport when "there was a kind of bang," he said. "We thought we'd hit turbulence — maybe the wheel landing gear was coming down or something — but it was 25 minutes. The real relief was that the particular design meant that the plane did not decompress." German aviation officials say the pilots didn't know until they landed that the rear hatch, which was about 32 inches by 40 inches, had detached from the aircraft and fallen 15,000 to 20,000 feet, along with two suitcases. The incident remains under investigation.